things that make me happy right now: living here.

A week of my favorite things . . . 

When I was little I lived for three years in Barbados, and my nine-year-old heart broke into a thousand pieces when we had to leave.  That place and the people there were apart of me, and leaving them was a loss I felt for a long, long time.

When I graduated high school I was given the gift of moving back for a semester, and I felt like a part of me came alive again.  For four short months, I soaked up the hot, humid weather, the sticky mosquito-filled nights and the island accents all around me.  I learned to navigate the bus system to go to work each day.  I ate street food and learned to toughen up to fend off men trying to sell me weed or proposition me on the beach.  I tucked my purse under the seat when riding in the car, and spent lots of time laughing with my co-workers in the tiny, old-fashioned book shop.  I was very, very happy.

I thought I was made for living overseas.

So I got confused when we moved here to South Asia a year ago and I experienced none of those happy feelings.  Instead, I experienced trauma and anger and frustration.  Instead of enjoying this brand new world, I spent a lot of time saying, “What is wrong with this place???”

I thought, Wait: who am I?  I’ve always been convinced that I wouldn’t be happy in the suburbs of America, but suddenly, that’s all I wanted.  I felt sure I’d made a huge mistake.

I told my counselor in tears over Skype, “I don’t know who I am.  I thought I’d love it here, but instead I’m miserable and lonely and I have horrible thoughts about taking my kids and moving back home.”

She said, “Julie, you’re okay.  You’re still the same person you always were.  This is a big change.  Just give yourself some time.”

And she was right.

It’s taken more than a year, but I think I’m coming back to myself.

This afternoon, I walked, backpack-clad, into bustling, dusty downtown, dodging traffic and potholes, happily blending in with the crowds of university students on the sidewalks.  I entered a coffee shop and greeted the employees, very haltingly, in their language, and we laughed together as I made them wait while I searched for the right words.

And I thought, “I’m so happy to be living here.”

It makes me happy to feel the dry, hot sun on my hair and see palm fronds stirring in the breeze and to know how to identify a banyan tree.

It makes me happy to see Judah throw back his head and close his eyes as the wind whips his face in the auto, to watch my kids jump on Priya’s scooter to ride to the park.

It makes me happy that Judah and Amie are counting down the days (the hours even) until we board the airplane for our visa run to Sri Lanka next week.

It makes me happy to meet people who are very, very different from me, who make my world bigger with their opinions and religious beliefs and strange ways of doing things.  It makes me happy to realize that I can be myself with these people.

It makes me happy to reach out and touch bright South Asian fabric, to eat South Asian food and read South Asian novels, and to understand.  Because this is my world too.  This country gets under your skin—first in an I-want-to-scream-way, then in a way that makes you realize you love it fiercely despite its flaws, and you will tell everyone you know that they have to come here to experience it for themselves.  It’ll change you, this place.

In the beginning, all I could see was the cost.  I cried bitter tears over missing holidays and weddings and family dinners.  I longed with my whole heart for a dishwasher and central a.c. and Five Guys hamburgers and Target.

I still miss our family and church and friends.  I still miss Target (why is it impossible to find plain colored t-shirts for summer in this city???).  And now, while the temperature is rising daily and we are still weeks out from “the hot months” I miss central air conditioning a whole lot.

But with all of that, I am finding that there are things I wouldn’t trade in order to be living back home.  I wouldn’t trade the ability to walk everywhere, or to catch an auto across town for two bucks.  I wouldn’t trade the ease of meeting people in this big, over-populated city.  I wouldn’t trade the color palette of skin shades and babble of languages in my ears.

I wouldn’t trade the slower pace of life—even all the waiting in lines and infuriating customer service and cancelled appointments mean that people will stop by and linger for hours over tea, because relationships always matter more than schedules.

I wouldn’t trade the experiences we have as a family—the travel, the learning together, even the hard, heart-breaking things we have to see and wrestle with.  I wouldn’t trade witnessing firsthand the faith and joy of a family who doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from.

And I wouldn’t trade coming face-to-face with my sin, because living in this gritty place can certainly bring out the worst in you.  I wouldn’t trade the day-by-day wonder of God’s forgiveness and grace.

Honestly,  I have hesitated to share these things with you.  I think I am a loyal person, and I have this fear that learning to love a new place and new people will somehow cut me off from all those I love back home, that it will mean my loyalty has shifted.

But harboring that fear seems like kind of a black-and-white way to look at life.  This happiness is part of my story of God’s love, and it means your prayers for me are being answered.  So that makes us more close, not less.  I know that God is big enough to teach me how to connect with my friends in India and to keep connecting with my friends and family in the U.S.

And so ends my seven days of things-that-make-me-happy.  Thanks for bearing with me—back to photos now.  I feel very, very blessed.